


Meltdown

by SheWhoWalksUnseen



Series: Barry Allen is Killer Frost [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Barry Allen Becomes Killer Frost, Barry Allen Isn't The Flash, Episode: s03e18 Abra Kadabra, Gen, POV Caitlin Snow, Someone Dies For a Hot Second, implied panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-14 02:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16484192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheWhoWalksUnseen/pseuds/SheWhoWalksUnseen
Summary: “Barry Allen,” she said, a half-laugh escaping her against her will at his smug expression, “you really are cold.”Or, moments before Barry runs a second time.





	Meltdown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgentMaryMargaretSkitz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentMaryMargaretSkitz/gifts).



> AgentMaryMargaretSkitz and I have been flailing over this au for about a week now and she wrote a lovely origin for Killer Frost!Barry the other day (that you can find here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16482839), which meant it was my turn to write something rather self-indulgent for this disaster au.
> 
> That something being this episode compliant fic feat. Caitlin and Barry having a swell time. So enjoy!

Caitlin came to to the sound of murmured voices, soft and hushed like they were sharing a great secret. Her parents used to whisper around her all the time, she remembered, though why it felt important she didn’t know. She wasn’t at home, was she?

“...you sure?”

“I’ll be fine, really. I feel fine.”

Then the headache sank in, along with the rest of her memories, and she groaned, bringing up a hand to rub at her temples close to her hairline.

Her heart leapt to her throat.

Abra Kadabra. The explosion.

_Barry._

“She’s awake!” Caitlin winced at the volume - definitely Cisco, who was already apologizing - and opened her eyes. The lights above blinded her before she blinked away the spots and found Cisco by Barry’s bed a few feet away. His bright grin eased the pounding headache for a moment, his sheer relief palpable as he hurried over with a green container in hand. “You, missy, need to stop scaring me like that.”

“Give her a minute, Cisco,” Barry reminded him, his own grin ghosting over his lips as he shifted on the bed into a better position. She couldn’t help but glance at his blanket, as if she could see his shaky stitches through the cotton. She hadn’t seen them before she’d passed out; getting thrown against a wall headfirst wasn’t a fun experience for her - or the disorientation and headache that came after.

Still, it could’ve been worse, Caitlin thought ruefully. She could’ve gotten _impaled_ like Barry. Her side twinged in sympathy and Caitlin swallowed hard.

“How’re you feeling, Sleeping Beauty?” Cisco drew closer and despite the tease, she could see the bags under his eyes, his grin tightening as he gave the bruises poking out from under her shirt’s neckline a once-over. She hoped Julian or Wally had been able to get him to take a break, a nap, anything to stop him from worrying.

Caitlin pushed herself upright and bit her lip as she fought back a wave of nausea. Deep breaths. Deep breaths, Cait. Barry started to push off his own bed, his joy fading before her eyes, but the stitches must’ve hurt because he hissed and sank back down.

She waved off Cisco’s concerned hand and pasted a thin smile on her face. “I’m fine. Just a little dizzy. Abra Kadabra?”

“Iris and Wally got him,” Cisco said. He held out the container for her to take and it took a moment for her to realize what it was. Ugh. She’d never liked Jello that much. “He won’t be hurting anyone again. Speaking of, Julian mentioned H.R. was back - really, the guy couldn’t have _called_ or something? - so I should… Or, I guess - ”

“We’ll be fine, Cisco.” He hesitated and she put a hand on his arm, giving it a squeeze. “Go see him. We’re not going anywhere.”

Cisco’s eyes darted between them both, taking in their injuries with a furrowed brow. She wanted to give him a hug but her head wasn’t going to agree with that notion any time soon.

After a few moments he sighed, shoulders slumping. “Fine,” he conceded. “But promise me you’ll yell - _both_ of you, that means you, Mr. I’m Gonna Hide How Much It Hurts Until I Nearly Pass Out - ” Caitlin didn’t miss the faint guilty flush to Barry’s cheeks “if you’re hurting or something happens. I mean it.”

“We promise.” Caitlin withdrew her hand and nodded toward the door. “Now go on, the man’s waiting.”

“I mean it!” Cisco started for the door, waggling a finger like a cranky old woman. “And those better be gone by the time I get back.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes and picked up the plastic spoon. Cisco and Ronnie had always fussed over her before the Accelerator explosion, her friend insisting on taking soup to her and Ronnie’s apartment when she was sick no matter how much she tried to shoo him away. Ronnie used to laugh and tease her about a little cold getting the better of her, the “frosty” doctor on the S.T.A.R. Labs project.

Her chest didn’t catch like it used to thinking about him - not as much anymore, at least. She remembered his laughter when he’d separated momentarily from Professor Stein, his embrace, his jokes about “fire and ice” that became all too real and terrifying.

Ronnie had laughed so hard, doubled over in the Cortex in front of a confused Barry, when he learned about his ice powers.

“I can’t believe him,” she said after a couple of minutes.

Barry, whose eyes had been drooping, tilted his head in Caitlin’s direction. “Mmm?”

“Cisco.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

She held up her container of lime Jello and wrinkled her nose. “He _knows_ I like strawberry better.”

Barry chuckled and pressed a hand to his side where the blanket covered his healing stitches. Caitlin could still remember him gritting his teeth hours ago, his pallor nearly white as she tried to guide Julian and Iris through his surgery through her throbbing headache, Cisco murmuring assurances by her side. She wondered how much truth Cisco’s warning about Barry nearly passing out held.

“Don’t tell him I told you, but, uh,” Barry glanced toward the door and met her gaze with a conspiratorial glint in his eyes, “pretty sure he ate the rest of them.”

“I _knew_ he lied about that! I bought those a week ago for _me_ , that little liar.”

Barry shook his head, looking far too entertained for a man who had almost died earlier that day. “Hey, they’re good. Can’t say I blame him.”

“Wha - ?” Caitlin’s eyes narrowed. “Oh.”

“Uh, what?”

“ _Oh,_ tell me you didn’t.”

“Wait, seriously what are you - ?” Understanding dawned and Barry’s mouth clamped shut. She stared him down, unrelenting despite the sheepish gleam in his eyes.

Uh huh.

She _knew_ Cisco couldn’t have eaten all twelve of those Jello cups by himself.

Barry fidgeted but he was unable to stop his eyes from flitting helplessly toward his own bedside table where a suspiciously pink container of Jello rested on top, halfway empty.

Next time Cisco got injured, that boy was getting _zilch. Nada._

“ _Barry_ ,” Caitlin said, flashing him a cheerful smile that immediately set off a flicker of panic across his face, “I don’t suppose you’d be up for a trade?”

“I’m injured, Cait.”

“So am I!”

“I’m almost finished with it, though,” he pouted. Her smile twitched before she could hide her amusement.

“You’ve had more than enough eating _my_ stash of Jello this past week, mister.”

Barry pressed a hand to his chest in mock offense. “You wouldn’t steal a man’s strawberry Jello, would you?”

“You stole it first! I’m just…” Caitlin floundered for a second. “I’m only proposing a trade.”

“For the lime?” Barry pulled a face and grabbed his Jello cup. He took a slow bite, smacking his lips exaggeratedly - eating _her_ Jello, the jerk - and shrugged. “Hmm. How about… I keep eating this one.”

“ _Barry Allen_ ,” she said, a half-laugh escaping her against her will at his smug expression, “you really are _cold_.”

“Not you too,” he groaned. “I can only handle so many puns a day, Cait.”

“Well, it's your own fault for walking into that one.”

“Hey, you snooze you lose.” He ate another spoonful and shifted onto an elbow, his flinch making her inner doctor growl with distaste, so he could set it back on the table. “If it makes you feel any better, I can ask Wally later to run to the store and get us all a big pack of strawberry Jello for the fridge.”

She looked away, pulling off the lid of her container as she sighed melodramatically. “ _Well_ , as much as I’d appreciate it, you don’t have to do that. We’d never eat anything else.”

“I think Wally likes strawberry too,” Barry laughed, “so we’d have to hide it from him.”

“Or he’d eat the whole pack before he got back from the store.”

“Aw, _that’s_ an awfully...cold…”

He sounded faint as he trailed off, almost…

“Barry?” She whipped around, her headache be damned.

The life-support machine began beeping erratically, a sound she knew too well, and her chest seized. Barry was slumped over, one arm thrown onto the table, his head lolling on the pillow, his skin already paling.

“Cisco!” she yelled, pushing off her covers and throwing the Jello onto the table. She didn’t stop to right the container when it tipped over, green gelatin spilling out slowly. “ _Cisco, it’s Barry!_ ”

He ran in not ten seconds later, Julian and H.R. on his heels as she stumbled to her feet. Her friend’s face went ashen when he took in the scene. “H.R., help Cait before she falls! Julian, do you - ”

Barry wheezed and started seizing, lifting off the bed as the monitor’s drone grew incessant. Caitlin could feel her hands shake as H.R. hurried over to grab her shoulder and steadied her before she pitched forward.

Her tools. She needed her tools. She needed to help, to save -

“Hold him down!” Julian shouted. He and Cisco ran over, grabbing Barry by the shoulders and legs, respectively. Barry bucked in their grip like he was possessed, eyes closed.

“He’s not breathing, we need - ”

“What do we do? _Caitlin_ \- ?”

“Oxygen, grab the oxygen,” she told H.R., who thankfully didn’t object as she moved toward the bed, tugging out of his grip as he did as she ordered. “We need to put it over his mouth. Julian, can you give chest compressions?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Caitlin pressed a hand to Barry’s pulse point on his wrist. His watch, the one Cisco had made him so long ago as a “welcome back” present after they’d found him - _they’d just gotten him back again_ \- that helped contain Barry’s powers itched against her skin.

Nothing.

Even with his healing, there was -

The flatline echoed in her ears like a gong, her hold on Barry’s wrist spasming.

“I got it, I got it.” H.R. pushed the cart over and Julian swapped places with Caitlin as H.R. placed the mask over Barry’s mouth. He started the compressions alongside the oxygen, pushing harder with every squeeze of the oxygen.

Cisco’s breath hitched and Caitlin saw tears run down his face as he let go of Barry’s legs - his _unresponsive_ legs, no longer flailing. He pressed his hands to his mouth as Julian _pushed_.

She felt as if she were watching Ronnie kiss her goodbye, flying up into the singularity to save Wally and the city all over again.

She was watching Jay - the remnant, the monster, the _fraud_ \- stare at her wide-eyed, Zoom’s hand clean through his chest.

She saw Barry shatter Zoom, freeze every inch of the other’s body and smash the statue to pieces with a _snarl_ , with _glowing blue eyes that’d glittered like diamonds as Earth-2’s Killer Frost stared down at her, his sneer vicious as “It’s a shame, really. I almost thought you were_ smart _, Caitlin Snow.”_

Before she begged him not to kill her.

Before another hand was thrust through his heart too.

Before _Barry -_

“Caitlin!” The sob drew her back to the present with a jolt and she realized her vision was blurring, Julian still doing chest compressions frantically and Cisco’s hand on her arm as -

“What do we do?” She’d never heard H.R.’s voice waver like this before. “What can - There has to be something we can do!”

The monitor still buzzed with the flatline.

Barry’s wrist was already growing cold in her grasp, not nearly as cold as he was when he used his powers.

“I don’t - ” She choked before she could stifle the sound. “Cisco, I - ”

“He’s gone,” Julian said, drawing his hands back, his face falling. The bluntness struck her like an arrow to the chest. “His heart… It’s not working.”

Her head was pounding. She let go of Barry and stepped back a few steps, trying to think.

“No. No, he’s not - we’re not losing him.” Cisco pushed past her and tore at the straps of Barry’s watch, tossing it aside before anyone could move.

“Are you mad?” Julian cried. “That’s not what he wanted! Frost - ”

“I don’t care!” Cisco swiped his palms over his eyes, over the tear tracks down his cheeks, sudden anger staring back at all of them. “It’s _Barry_ , I won’t watch him _die_!”

“Cisco,” she murmured, placing a hand on his shoulder gently. He tensed, impossibly stiff as he glanced back at her.

She wondered if he was remembering the first time they met Barry, in a similar bed in the Labs, watching over him while he was in his coma. How he’d frozen the sheets, his panic bleeding into the chill of the room.

The flatline faded and the monitor began to beep at a slowly steadying rate. Cisco let out a sob of relief and H.R. sighed, dropping his head.

Caitlin lifted the sheet and saw Barry’s wound - _all_ of Barry’s wounds - healing themselves over as the room grew colder by the minute. Frost clung to his skin like dewy spider-webs, meshing with the messy stitches Julian had done earlier.

She couldn’t stop her hands from shaking when Barry opened his eyes and they were _icy blue, not soft hazel,_ and he let out a puff of air, the small cloud drifting upward off his lips that kept paling until they became the same discolored blue that’d stretched into a wide sneer in Zoom’s lair.

 _It’s okay_ , Barry whispered in the back of her mind, memories of his embrace after she broke down about the nightmares to Iris and Cisco flooding back with _awful_ clarity she hadn’t achieved since Zoom’s death and Barry ran. _It’ll be alright. I’m not going to turn into him. Not like that._

_Not ever._

“Barry?” Cisco asked, shifting like he wanted to hug their friend.

Their friend whose hair was turning stark white.

Their friend who slammed his hands on the edges of his bed and -

Ice exploded from Barry, knocking them all off their feet. Caitlin slammed into the wall by her bed and landed hard on her hands. She hissed and drew back, falling onto her rear as her world spun and she shut her eyes for a second to try and regain control of her faculties.

She didn’t need to hear Cisco’s gasp, to feel the room’s temperature drop at least fifteen degrees in less than a minute and look at Barry - _no, not Barry_ , her mind screamed, remembering a man who’d stood over her the same way and wanted to thrust an icicle through her heart, _Killer Frost_ \- rising from the bed with an unbearably _cold_ expression, one he’d never worn before. In his white medical gown, his hair and skin nearly matching that same color, a parody of a satisfied smile crossed his lips. He closed his eyes and let out a chuckle, a puff of frosty breath streaming from his lips like smoke.

“Barry.” The name left Caitlin before she could stop herself, breathless and shaky, and those impossibly blue eyes locked onto hers. The smile grew and he tilted his head. Someone groaned across the room quietly - maybe H.R., maybe Julian, she didn’t know but she hoped they were alright.

“That’s not my name,” Barry - _not Barry_ , came the cry once more and this time she was almost inclined to believe it alongside the way her heart was _throbbing_ in her chest as she couldn’t breathe enough air in to calm herself down - hummed. He took a few steps forward, ice crawling up his arms to form twin spears, and she backed further against the wall. “You should know that better than most, _Cait_.”

“Barry, this isn’t you.” Cisco pulled himself to his feet by the door with a nasty scrape across his cheek. “You have to fight it, okay, think warm thoughts. We’re all - ”

Barry - _Killer Frost_ \- fired a jet of ice toward Cisco and a wordless cry escaped her as her friend dove out of the way, scrambling behind an overturned table as _Killer Frost_ stalked after him. The mocking smile was gone, replaced by apathetic anger.

Julian was starting to rise as well, helping H.R. up as he met Caitlin’s eyes in askance. She couldn’t move, couldn’t respond, not when one of her best friends was about to _kill them_ , when it was _Zoom’s lair all over again_.

She spotted Barry’s watch by her feet, remembering how he’d come to Cisco not long ago asking for help in controlling his powers, how he never wanted to become the man he had upon killing Zoom. She reached for it despite a now-overwhelming headache and pulled the strap closer.

Maybe if they got it on him again, maybe if they calm him down like every other time before -

“My name,” the cold meta-human snarled, “is _Killer Frost_.”

“Barr - ”

“And if you don’t want to become a human popsicle, I’d suggest _running_ while you can.”

“You don’t want to do this,” Cisco tried again, his voice wavering as desperation won out. “Deep down you know that, please - ”

Caitlin lifted the watch and her gut plummeted as she took in the smashed screen, the deliberately frozen controls.

“No,” and now his voice came out distorted, like two people were speaking at once, “I think I _really_ do.”

And for a second time, frost spread throughout the room, knocking them flat onto their backs and yanking the door wide open.

By the time the chill began to dissipate, Killer Frost - Barry, she thought hysterically, pressing a hand to her mouth as she fought to breathe, fought to _not panic_ and _sob_ , this was _Barry_ \- was long gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Come scream with me on my DCTV Tumblr @areyouscarletcold. Comments are always appreciated, and have a great day!


End file.
